New: Key Findings From The Survey of Library Use of Open Source Software (Primary Research Group)

Primary Research Group has released The Survey of Library Use of Open Source Software.

The 122 page report ($) looks, “closely at how public, academic and special libraries are using open source solutions for email, integrated library systems, word processing and spreadsheets, the library website, server management, and content management and digital preservation software, among other applications.”

Nearly 91% of respondents said that they had never experienced any downtime using open source email alternatives

More than two-thirds of the libraries sampled have ever replaced a commercial software system with an open source alternative

Nearly 43% of the academic libraries in the sample use an open source alternative for content management software

Public libraries in the sample spent a mean of 960 staff hours per year in adjusting or maintaining open source software systems

The questionnaire for the report was largely designed by Frederick Zarndt, consultant to Digital Divide Data, Content Conversion Specialists, DL Consulting and Chair, Newspaper Section, International Federation of Libraries and Associations.

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.